


Directions

by kylogram



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Childhood, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6500044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylogram/pseuds/kylogram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>My planet has ice.</i> That's all Hux says and he can feel the kid, Ben, nod.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Directions

**Author's Note:**

> Self-fill for the [kink meme](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3467.html?thread=7408267#cmt7408267).
> 
> Full prompt in the end notes. This is mostly sweet in intention but obviously neither Kylo nor Ben had happy childhoods, there's Snoke stuffz, some neglect and Brendol Hux mentioned in passing which obviously implies physical abuse. Please tread with care.

_What is your name?_ the high pitched question brings Brendol Hux II right back from the uneasy sleep in which he had fallen not ten minutes earlier.

_Bren._ He replies simply in a sharp mental tone that he hopes is not too friendly. There have been many friends before, and sometimes they run away and do what they please when they talk to him, but he's never had one that interrupts his sleep before they have even been introduced. The kid laughs. Rude.

_That's funny, my name is Ben!_ Hux can practically feel the smile of the kid, ear to ear as he sits in his own bed, clearly too simple-minded to see that the world is far too grim for people to laugh like that at this time of night. He's probably young.

_How old are you?_ Hux asks, and he does it out loud, because somehow it feels less crazy when he talks to himself out loud than when he is quiet. 

_If I tell you, you have to promise we'll still be friends._ The grave note in his voice makes Hux huff. That young, huh? Why did his brain decide to give him a toddler for a friend. He is pathetic but not that much.

_So you're five, then. Sorry, kid, we're not talking again. I don't talk to babies._ Hux hopes he sounds convinced. He has erased enough friends to know what works. But he's also getting messed up enough that he wonders if the time will come that he'll never be able to silence the voices anymore.

_Five and a half, I know you're ten, but you could use a friend!_ Hux's stomach clenches at that. How on the galaxy does this insolent kid know that he's ten and how does he dare to imply that Hux might need him for anything? He's about to yell at him, using the words his father has smacked him right in the face for using when the kid in all his rudeness continues talking.

_Please don't be mad, it's just that you were crying!_ Crying? He wasn't... he touches his cheeks and indeed, light moisture and dried salt.

_Can you see me?_ Hux asks then, a tiny scared voice that he'll deny he's ever used. He has heard of force ghosts, maybe this one is like that. Or maybe he's gone mad, he has heard stories about people breaking during training for the Empire. Just splitting in bits and going through life as broken androids, no good for anyone.

_I can see your ceiling, and the lamp, but I don't know how to see things, really._ Hux wonders if he could see him if he had a mirror. If the kid could show him what he sees with his own eyes, and if wherever he is it's a little better than his world of ice and silence.

_Where are you?_ He asks, and he doesn't know the names of that many planets, but he knows the ones that matter, where people are getting ready and where his dad says he'll live once he's old enough for the Academy, in a year or two.

_I don't know. Mom doesn't tell me. We travel a lot. I'm somewhere with trees right now._ Hux has heard of trees, apparently warm planets have them. He's never been to a warm planet.

_My planet has ice._ That's all Hux says and he can feel the kid, Ben, nod. 

_I have to sleep._ Hux adds dryly after a few seconds of silence, and Ben replies with a soft and quiet _'okay, good night'_ to which Hux replies with a simple nod.

Hux would be happy to be done with the conversation, while also being happy to have had it at all if Ben hadn't, almost as an afterthought, a good minute and a half after Hux had closed his eyes, decided to say something else.

_I see him too, he talks to me too._ And Hux is frozen on the spot, mouth dry and arms wrapped tight around himself as if that would make it better. He hates that he doesn't even have to ask what the kid means. He hates that this is what makes him know that the kid is real.

_I'm sorry._ He says, and he knows then that the kid was right. He could use a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "When Hux was little, his life was quite tough, his parents managed to be abusive, neglectful and overbearing at once, he had no friends and everything he did was meant to prepare him for his grandiose fate. 
> 
> With all that was going on, his sole solace were his daydreams and the conversations with his made up friends. The latest one being a kid called Ben that seems as lonely and sad as he is and that he insists, is not imaginary, just far."


End file.
